“You misunderstand,” Shan said. “We are terminating your conspiracy.” He extracted several pieces of folded paper from his pocket. “Your Miss Kim was very cooperative.” He unfolded the papers. “First, a signed confession that she lied to a Public Security officer in Hong Kong, wrongfully telling him that Colonel Tan ordered him to bear false witness, with enough detail to prove that the three of you fabricated a case against Metok to commit murder under cover of the law. Then these,” he fanned out three sheets. “Apparently you all have bank accounts in Hong Kong that cannot be explained. Corruption often carries worse punishment than murder in the motherland. If you try to explain them away by saying Miss Kim made false account records, then you only implicate yourselves more fully in Metok’s murder.” Pike had offered an expression for the tactic which Shan suspected was out of Shakespeare. Hoist on their petard.

Jiao laughed. Huan put his hand back on his pistol. “So resourceful, to the very end. I respect that, Constable,” Jiao said. “You have a tenacity of spirit that I admire, really I do. Twenty years younger, and you could have joined us. Was it you who attacked the director with ice balls?”

“Sorry. Everyone said the mountain god flung that hail, including the director himself.”

It was Major Xun who spoke next. “You do understand that you are surrounded by our men, all of them armed. I fear we may be looking at another one of those terrible road accidents in the mountains. Do you drive? I foolishly forgot to ask whether Professor Gangfen did.”

“A real one or another fake one?” Lhakpa asked.

Xun grinned. “Good. You understand. Can you all fit in one car?”

“How many times have we said it in training, Major?” Tan said in a disappointed tone. “Never assume you have the upper hand until you have actually seized it.” The colonel motioned Xun to follow him to the cliff edge. It was over two hundred feet to the bottom, but they could clearly see the file of men in coveralls being marched off by Zhu’s men. Zhu, standing on a boulder, waved at Xun and the colonel.

“In her statement,” Shan continued, “Agent Kim states that you had her reserve three tickets on tonight’s flight to Katmandu. You actually do have tickets waiting for you, though they were reserved out of Colonel Tan’s office. Leave now and you can still make it. From there you can fly on to India or Hong Kong. A new life in the same body.”

Jiao seemed amused. “Same body?”

“Stay here and you will be put against a wall and shot. For corruption. For murder. But most of all for lying to Beijing. The Tibetans would expect you to be reincarnated. Something very lowly, I should think. A squirrel perhaps?” he asked, turning to Lhakpa.

“Moles,” the snow monk replied. “The mountain god needs workers below the ground.”